Wednesday, March 31, 2010

I'm a sucker for historical fantasy, especially if it's presented in a "realistic" way, that is, if it attempts to ground the fantasy in the history it's presenting. So, for example, I love fantasies set in the ancient world that make use of the ancient worldview about, say, oracles or divine intervention in order to present a story that nevertheless conforms to history as we know it. I'm willing to extend a wide latitude here, which is why I adore Richard Tierney's "Simon of Gitta" stories, even though they include a lot of Lovecraft-inspired swashbuckling action (those are a few words you probably don't see conjoined very often!) at odds with real history. After all, historical fantasy is fantasy and even someone as stodgy as I must be willing to make allowances for the sake of a good story.

My love for historical fantasy is a deep one, going back to my youth. That's probably why, when Yaquinto Publications released its RPG Man, Myth & Magic back in 1982, I was intrigued. Not intrigued enough to buy it myself, I should note, but intrigued enough that I egged a friend on to buy it and then set out to try and run a campaign using it. Unfortunately, Man, Myth & Magic wasn't quite the game I was hoping it was. Though it can be charitably called a historical fantasy, it's somewhat unclear exactly what history it's meant to represent. As written, it's supposed to cover 5000 years of history, from 4000 B.C. to 1000 A.D. Its geographical scope is similarly broad, covering much of the Old World, from Europe to Asia to Africa, albeit with a strong focus on the classical Mediterranean world. This breadth, while admirable in its ambition, prevented the game from having anything approximating a focus and adventures were inevitably an odd mishmash of times, places, and cultures, like an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, only less credible.

This ambitious breadth was reflected in the character generation rules too, which used random rolls to determine a character's culture and profession. Consequently, a typical party might consist of a Roman legionnaire, an African witchdoctor, an Irish leprechaun, a Siberian shaman, and an Egyptian priest. Certainly one could forgo the random rolls to create a more coherent party of adventurers but there was little benefit to doing so, as the game's adventures were a crazy quilt of elements -- the characters journeying all over the world to face opponents from a wide variety of places and time periods. I won't deny that there's a whimsical sort of fun to be had in suck a motley assortment of characters one week fighting side by side with Julius Caesar in Gaul and the next week foiling a plot by evil mummies to overthrow Akhenaten. However, it's not the sort of fun I was looking for at the time and my friends and I happily ceased trying to play it.

What's intriguing is that the game's author, James Herbert "Herbie" Brennan, is a writer of fantasy fiction and books on New Age and occult topics. This makes me wonder if perhaps the incoherence I saw in the game was a deliberate choice in some way connected to his personal interests in outré philosophies. I don't recall any overt New Age evangelizing in the game, but then I was 12 years-old at the time and not particularly good at noticing such things (assuming they were even there). I did, however, notice that Man, Myth & Magic was a disappointing game, one whose general outlines could have been made into a compelling RPG in the hands of a more capable designer, which is a shame. A well-done historical fantasy game in the ancient world is something I'd love to see; odds are good that, even if it fell short of my expectations, I'd still like it more than I did Man, Myth & Magic.

31 comments:

(I just went looking for Richard Tierney books - um - I hope you have yours in a safe place.)

Our regular DM brought "Man & Myth and Magic", but I don't remember playing it more than once. I do remember a map of (?)Stonehenge with an old-style dungeon under it and not being impressed; why bother with the historical setting if you're not going to use it.

Overall, I don't think we at 16 new enough ancient history to make it work anyway.

"...a typical party might consist of a Roman legionnaire, an African witchdoctor, an Irish leprechaun, a Siberian shaman, and an Egyptian priest...one week fighting side by side with Julius Caesar in Gaul and the next week foiling a plot by evil mummies to overthrow Akhenaten."

I bought the game when it came out, I was a big fan of many Yaquinto games. It was an interesting break from our standard fantasy RPG, but proved to be a bit too ponderous. Interesting combat system with called shots and the like. I think if the game had been patterned around something like Mechwarrior by FASA it may have played more smoothly.

Herbie Brennan is also the author of some solo gamebooks called 'Grailquest' which are nominally set in Arthurian times but are actually just hysterically funny pieces of satire targetting various fantasy tropes. I've been hoping he'd release them for free on the internet like Joe Dever did with the Lone Wolf series but no such luck.

'A well-done historical fantasy game in the ancient world is something I'd love to see; odds are good that, even if it fell short of my expectations, I'd still like it more than I did Man, Myth & Magic.' Ever have look at Zenobia by Paul Elliot?

I played the introductory scenario in which you start as a gladiator during the reign of a randomly determined Roman emperor. I thought it was quite fun.

The game has promise, but my biggest complaint is not about the random professions, but the overwhelming odds that you will generate a merchant. I think I'd adjust the tables to accommodate more variety. Parties of merchants may actually be more credible, but they can also be incredibly boring if exotic adventure is what lured you to the game.

I recall reincarnation being an important part of the game, which intrigued me, but who wants to look back on a long line of previous lives all spent as a merchant?

Speaking of role-playing games with ancient settings, have you looked into Palladium's Valley of the Pharaohs? I think they may still be offering it as a series of free PDF downloads. Someday, I need to play it. (And I wish I had all the related miniatures that were available when the game was released. They were nice.)

The system was definitely cumbersome. We only played it once. The chance of a Merchant character was about 1 in 4 or so, with most of the rest being one of the many warrior or spell-casting classes.

The intriguing thing about it was the reincarnation rules. When you died, you generated a new character (and were allowed to reroll if you rolled the same class again). Then as time went by you got to make "Distant Memory" rolls, and would eventually remember your previous existence, at which point you regained the special abilities of your former class, while keeping your new abilities.

WV: quinne. Clearly a reference to William Von Orman Quine, a philosopher who was very interested in self-referential statements, appropriately enough.

I have a friend who owns this game and its few supplements. He LOVES it, although he's never played it or run it. He was bummed out that the final adventure was never published, which supposedly would have completed the campaign arc Herbert had started in the first four(?) books.

You should also check out the Man, Myth, and Magic encyclopedia set. Tricky to find, but EXTREMELY useful for any RPGer.

I only ever played AD&D (OK, and Call of Cht...Cth...C..uh..you know), but our game god was an inveterate collector of RP games, so I do remember looking through this. I knew enough even then to be less than impressed by the mulligan stew of themes being mushes together.

I'd never put it together that the author of that game was also the author of Timeship, a game which was the subject of some serious debate in the gaming community during the BADD years. You see, it seems that Brennan's theory of roleplaying was (and may still be) that it really is great training for esoteric practices like Ceremonial Magic, and he was pretty explicit about that in Timeship.

faoladh said..."You see, it seems that Brennan's theory of roleplaying was (and may still be) that it really is great training for esoteric practices like Ceremonial Magic, and he was pretty explicit about that in Timeship."

Yeah, Timeship is about a close as you can get to "overt new age evangelizing," not that new agers and occultists do much evangelizing. The game is pretty much a step by step lesson on magickal visualization with a focus on psychic time travel but teaches techniques that will serve the initiate... sorry... gamer in any magickal pursuit such as ceremonial magick, meditation, path working, etc. The system itself, with PERSONAL ENERGY being the main stat and the fact that you can use your PERSONAL ENERGY to create equipment or change your character's appearance, makes it obvious that your characters in the game are psychic projections and that the system is meant to simulate a type of psychic time travel rather than actual physical time travel. When one considers that Herbie Brennan also wrote a book on psychic time travel, this is not surprising. It's still not much in the way of a credible and playable role playing game but interesting nonetheless for its approach and a great beginner's guide if you want to someday gain the Knowledge and Conversation of your Holy Guardian Angel or actually travel through time in a completely subjective and unverifiable manner.

The intriguing thing about it was the reincarnation rules. When you died, you generated a new character (and were allowed to reroll if you rolled the same class again). Then as time went by you got to make "Distant Memory" rolls, and would eventually remember your previous existence, at which point you regained the special abilities of your former class, while keeping your new abilities.

I liked the idea of such a system, but the difficulty for me (even then) was how to explain that a new character, who was conceivably older than the previous character whom he was replacing was a reincarnation of the earlier one.

“I liked the idea of such a system, but the difficulty for me (even then) was how to explain that a new character, who was conceivably older than the previous character whom he was replacing was a reincarnation of the earlier one.”

Time is a mundane construct that doesn’t apply to souls. There you go. ^_^

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